Neil W. McCabe is a journalist working in Washington.

06/23/2013

‘Moms Demand Action” target gun makers, video games

Naomi Beth Seligman, the left-wing PR specialist, who helped CIA clerk Valerie Plame deceive the nation, is at it again, and this time she is going after gun makers and video game producers.

Seligman was hired by Plame to spin to the media that the Bush administration leaked her name and endangered her life because she was against the war in Iraq. A self-centered and twisted fantasy as the facts finally bared out.

Anti-gun rights paymaster, New York CityMayor Michael R. Bloomberg, through one of his front groups: Moms Demand Action (for Gun Sense in America), hired the Bay State-raised resident of Santa Monica, Calif., to pressure video games to stop using realistic guns.

Don’t laugh, there is actually movement in that direction.

In May, video game giant Electronic Arts, maker of “Madden NFL” and the “Medal of Honor” series announced that in the future it would not pay licensing fees to gun manufacturers whose guns they used in their video games. Whoa! Big news, right? Well, kinda. Turns out the company had never paid royalties in the past either.

The one thing it had done was partner with the makers of guns used in the games to donate money to veteran-related charity. Well, that program was shut down.

The only money that changed hands was from MacMillan, maker of the .50 caliber sniper rifle, and Magpul, maker of the high-end extended magazines, was from the gun makers to veterans.

To Seligman, who also works for the Bloomberg-led Mayors Against Illegal Guns, EA’s decision is progress. Remember, veteran lost out and everything goes on as before.

With Seligman at the helm, Moms Demand Action released a report June 18 “Game Over: Resetting the Relationship Between Video Game and Gun Manufacturers was produced by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Gun Truth Project.” The report is 16-page mishmash of pseudo-social science all suggesting that playing video games with realistic guns leads to the video game player becoming a spree shooter.

In one passage the report reads: “Adam Lanza was also reportedly an avid player of that game, which features a number of rifles made by Bushmaster. Lanza later used a Bushmaster .233 caliber to kill 26 people, including 20 elementary school children, in Newtown, Connecticut.”

Did you follow the bouncing ball? Lanza played a game that used rifles made by Bushmaster, Lanza used a Bushmaster rifle—but, not one used in the game—to kill 26 people, including 20 children.

How is that for proof?

Another passage that refers to the spree shootings in Norway and Newtown: “To be clear, violent video games were not the cause of either of these tragedies. But one can certainly see the link between the promotion of actual, real life weapons in video games and the way in which the shootings were carried out.” Right?

One can also certainly see that if someone, anyone at those shooting tragedies had been armed themselves the situation could have been stopped all together.

Another passage in the report reads: “For the sake of public safety, and the safety of their customers, the makers of these games should not enter into deals that connect fantasy to reality, promote the gun industry and spark ideas in the heads of individuals inclined to mass violence.”

This is just more nonsense. There no public safety connection between licensing deals, let alone sparks that lead to mass violence.

One of the things lost in the current debate over gun rights is that there must be a higher threshold for tampering with a right guaranteed in the Constitution. There is a process for changing the Constitution, but it is through amendments, not through the bullying of companies by left-wing media pranksters.

Sure, maybe the “Founding Founders” were silent on video games, but the Left is going after video games in order disrupt the acceptance of firearms in America.

Moms Demand Action and Seligman are trying to do with the phony-baloney report is leverage generate shame and sanction to do what they cannot achieve through the regular democratic process.